Snap!

Okay, for the past few weeks, yes weeks, we have had a problem in the WTF household. A mouse. I first saw him run past me when I entered our family room. He ran right into our kitchen but I really didn't see where he went. Most likely because I was busy screaming at the time and that can wreak havoc with your powers of observation. Actually I am not a bit surprised that we have a mouse considering all the construction work going on next door. Not so coincidentally, the mouse was first seen right after they started digging their swimming pool/bomb shelter/really big hole in the back yard. I guess we were its relocation plan.

So I went to the ironmonger (I love that word = an ironmonger is something like a hardware store but ironmonger sounds so much more medieval) to purchase a trap. I was concerned about using a snap trap, mostly because I figured I would end up hurting myself more than the mouse. So I bought a new fangled kind of mouse trap. It is a big round piece of black plastic that almost looks like a big wheel of cheese. I guess that is why it was called the Big Cheesy. (Note to all interested mouse catchers, in my very recent experience, traps with cutsie names - not so effective.) Anyway, it has a hole in one side. You put your bait, in our case some of our it-is-so-expensive-here-you-can't-tell-Gramma-how-much-we-pay-American-peanut-butter, in the hole. Allegedly the mouse goes for the peanut butter and a door shuts after him, locking him in there -- ready for disposal. Allegedly. Neither one of my Big Cheesys caught anything except some ridicule from Snake.

So this time we went to Home Base, the UK equivalent of Home Depot. It is pretty good sized and surprisingly didn't have an aisle sign for "rodent killing apparatus". So we had to ask a clerk. He whispered to Chizz, "in the next aisle". Why the whisper? Did he think we brought the mouse with us? Did he think the mouse could hear? I don't know but anyway we purchased 2 traps. These are sort of like snap traps but were a bit easier to set, so it makes it a bit more difficult to accidentally set it off and less likely to break a finger. Again we used the peanut butter and again we caught nothing. So far, we were about $25 invested in this problem and I kept thinking I heard small mouse laughing under the refrigerator. I bought some of the normal, wooden, mouse traps (4 in a package from my ironmonger) but they were extremely sensitive and I couldn't set it without having it go off like a second later. It just wouldn't stay set and I decided I didn't want to hurt myself. I was just hoping that one of our other traps would eventually work.

Last night before bed, I was sorting laundry. As you know, laundry is pretty much a 24 hour event around here. I was going to put a load in before I went to bed. As I was sorting the laundry, a mouse ran right by my pile. It startled me since it was about 1 a.m. and I screamed. I decided enough was enough and went downstairs to find the basic wooden traps I had purchased the week before. I went on the internet and found out that in addition to peanut butter, mice also like grain and chocolate. I didn't have any grain but I did have some leftover corn from dinner and as far as chocolate, the only thing I had was these chocolate wafer like things from Cadbury that look like chocolate potato chips. So I set all four traps, one under the sink, one under the fridge, one against the wall in the family room and one in my bathroom. The mouse had run in there and although I couldn't see how, there was a minuscule little opening between cabinets and that was the only possible entry point as far as I could tell. I used the chocolate in some and corn in another and then a chocolate/corn combo in the last. I went to bed, sure that I wouldn't catch anything.

I woke up this morning and SNAP! found the dead mouse in my bathroom trap. YAY!!! Now, don't get all animal rights, poor mouse suffering, weak on me. I don't care. I am sorry, I pick me and my family over the mouse. Snake took him outside and disposed of him in the trash. Then came upstairs and said "You know Mom, there is probably at least 2 around, like an upstairs and a downstairs mouse." Two mice? I did the only thing I could, I grounded him (Snake, that is).


P.S. I did fight the urge to take a photo of my dead trophy to put on the blog, but I resisted. It grossed even me out.

Hurghada - No I Am Not Clearing My Throat.

Okay, so the kids have 2 (yes, 2) weeks off for Spring Break. We wanted to go somewhere for at least one of the weeks but one of Kiki's friends from home is visiting for one week so we needed to be back for her arrival on Easter. The kids wanted to go somewhere warm, I wanted to go somewhere both warm and with interesting sights and Chizz wanted to go somewhere that wouldn't cost us an arm and a leg. Mostly the kids and I won. So in order to get any warmth, you need to go south of London quite a bit. We dismissed Portugal (already been there), Spain (just been there), the Canary Islands (really couldn't guarantee the warmth), Greece (we are going to do that later). So what did we come up with? Another clue below:




Sense some kind of theme in our vacations recently? Yes, we went to Egypt for the second time in 3 weeks. Now here is our reasoning. First, when we made our plans for Spring Break, we weren't quite sure whether the swim team was going to take any JV boys on the trip to Cairo. We knew that Egypt was something that would be interesting to the whole family, it met all the other criteria - warm, interesting, fairly cheap. And, I mean, Chizz and I weren't going to be going to Cairo. Only the kids were and we weren't sure whether Snake's team would be going. Well in fact they ended up just taking one JV boy, Snake. And then the parents decided to go. But we still went and we were glad we did.

We ended up going to Hurghada, which is on the Red Sea. It was an old fishing village that was turned into a resort town. It's main, and really, only business is tourism. We went on a short little tour of Hurghada and I asked our guide,(Mohammed 1 - we started numbering our Mohammeds, because it seemed like every other guy there had that name. We suspect they all use the same name tag and just pass it around)about it. Anyway, I asked him what was the other industry besides tourism and he looked at me quite quizzically. He said there is no other industry in Hurghada, just tourism. The boat companies all run snorkeling, diving or fishing trips. The hotels and restaurants all service the industry, the bus companies - all for tourism. Mohammed was proud of Hurghada but realistic about Egypt as well. This photo is of a memorial dedicated
to the people in Hurghada who fought in the altercations between Egypt and Israel. I inquired about the large numbers of unfinished building we saw all around Hurghada. To be fair, on my recent trip to Cairo, I had noticed the same type of thing. In Cairo, I noticed a few buildings that were clearly unfinished but you could tell people were living in the buildings. You saw laundry hanging from the balconies, people inside the windows etc but there were not roofs on top. The buildings were topped with cinder block that had rebarb sticking out of it. Our guide Cairo explained that was because of a tax that was enforced on "completed" buildings. Once the roof went up, the tax was levied - apparently a very steep tax. So to avoid that tax, the buildings never "finished", even though people moved in. In Hurghada what has happened is similar. Apparently, in order to stimulate the economy, the government gave people property. The only stipulation in the land giveaway was that sometime in the 5 years after the new owner took possession, he must start building. If after 5 years, no building has commenced, the land would revert back to the government. So all these people got land, didn't really do anything with it until right before the 5 year time limit expired. Everyone runs around and starts a building, building it enough to ward off repossession of the land and then building stops. Bureaucracy at its best.

After the first day of laying around, we were up for a bit more action so we decided to book one of the many snorkeling trips offered in Hurghada. In their haste to build up Hurghada as a tourist resort, they damaged quite a bit of the coral reef right off the Hurghada beach. As a sad result, most of the snorkeling is done by taking a short boat ride to the coral reef a bit further off. We snorkeled off Giftun Island and we saw some amazing fish. These photos are not retouched, the water is actually about 4 different colors of blue and turquoise. The water so clear, that you could see right down to the reef from the boat and sometimes make out a few fish as well.

In addition to lying around and soaking up the sun (too much sun in Kiki's case!), we managed to do quite a few day trips. As I mentioned in my other recent post on Egypt I really enjoy this part of the world and although I did get to see some of the ancient wonders of the World, ie. the pyramids, the sphinx and cab driving in Cairo city, I was anxious to see more. So we arranged several different tours for different days. Instead of relating it in a very long, long post now, I have decided to break it down over the next few days in little manageable posts or post-its (tee-hee). So stay tuned for more Egyptian adventures (and I promise no more musical clips unless - wait are there any more Egyptian themed ones - perhaps one younger than 20 years old? Nope, I don't think so.).

How Did We Get So Funky? We Did Not Do the Monkey***.

Happy Easter! I have so much to catch up on! Okay the title is a hint for one of our latest travel adventure. Any ideas? How about this:



Egypt!!! That's right. The kids had a swim meet in Cairo. It was end of the season big final swim meet, like sectionals or regionals. They only took 20 swimmers and both Kiki & Snake went. About a month or so before the meet, some parents got together and decided it would be fun to go along. Fun for us, that is. I am not so sure the kids thought it would be fun but who the heck cares.

The meet itself is held during 2 full days at the American School in Cairo and about 12 teams attend. They come from England, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland. For some of these kids it is the first time they have been in a swim meet outdoors. Most of the American kids are from the East Coast in the US and they have always swam indoors. In fact it was the first time many of the kids and parents have seen classrooms that open up outdoors, not totally indoors. Being from the West Coast, this is exactly what we were used to so it was interesting listening to people exclaim at the difference. The meet went very well. Kiki and Snake both had some good races and Kiki made finals (even though she wasn't seeded to) so it was a fun to get a ribbon from Cairo.

The kids all stay with local families and the parents all decided to stay at a very nice high end hotel in Cairo. Other than the swim meet, we weren't really going to interact with the kids much, which was a bit disappointing but we had lots of tours scheduled to keep us busy and I think the kids had a good time despite not being with their folks!!

The first stop for the parents was Giza where the Sphinx and Pyramid are. There are really no adequate words to describe the emotion you feel when you first see the Pyramids. It is simply amazing. Seeing something you have looked at in pictures since you were a small child, something so iconic, it is a bit overwhelming. I had a few preconceived notions about the pyramids that proved to be untrue. First, from all the pictures I have seen over the year, I had the impression that the stones were all placed together tightly and had a smooth exterior, almost like you could slide down the edge. But that isn't really true. The bricks are not laid flush, they jut out. So that surprised me a bit. Another idea I had was that once you walked in the pyramid, there would be a hallway of sorts and you just walked into all the rooms and saw the treasure. Again, not really how it works. You are able to go in the pyramid but instead of a hallway, it is more like a tunnel about 4 feet tall max. Several people in our group that are slightly claustrophobic found it challenging but I made it all the way up. I hadn't travelled that far to wait in the lobby!! So you have to walk along the tunnel bent over at the waist, walking up stairs and ramps until you get to the top and you can see the room. It is pretty empty now, but amazing all the same when you think these things were built in around 2500 BC. One fact I learned from our guide was that even though these pyramids have been around for awhile and scientists have been crawling all over them for many years, they are still discovering rooms within the structure. It is like a puzzle that keeps changing. From the pictures that I have seen over the years, you get the impression that these pyramids are in the middle of the nowhere, way deep in the desert. Actually the pyramids are remarkably close to Cairo and you can take pictures of the pyramid with Cairo in the background. But I didn't.

Right down the road is the Sphinx. Again, breathtaking. It was also constructed around 2500 BC and over the years has had some restoration done to it. You can walk through the temple area and get a really close look at the Sphinx.



Also in this area are quite a few camel herds. For a negotiated price you can ride a camel for a few minutes. It is quite the thing to do, so of course I had to do it. It is pretty scary, at least I think so. The ride itself isn't that bad, although I always had the feeling I was leaning forward and I could fall off at any moment. But the really scary part is when the camel gets up or down. You get on when they are sitting and when they get up, they lean forward quite a bit. I had visions of falling off over his head. But I didn't. Yes, I do have photos of me on the camel. No, I won't post them here but if you are nice AND I have had a glass or two of wine, I might show them to you!


I had always said I wasn't that interested in visiting the Middle East or any of these countries although I would like to see the pyramids and the sphinx. Actually I was pretty wrong. I found this place fascinating. Most likely because it is so different from any of the places I have visited so far. I don't think I could live here. We did visit the American School and I think this would be a tough assignment. I don't think many foreigners drive here. I am not exaggerating when I say there are really no traffic laws here at all. There are lanes clearly marked but there is no lane management. For example there could be three lanes marked but there are 5 cars abreast of each other in the lanes. Also animals are allowed on the freeway. So you can see donkeys or horses pulling carts right next to a big righ. I tried to get a photo of that but it didn't work. Drivers dart in and out of traffic. I worked hard not to watch any of our bus drivers or taxi drivers drive, it is really too nerve racking. I am alive to talk about it but I am certain there are a few more gray hairs attributable to the experience.

Cairo is huge, about 17 million people. Our tour guide told us the populuation has been growing at an alarming rate, for the past few years 1 million people per year. The pollution is awful. I learned that about 20 - 25,000 people a year die of some kind of pollution related disease in Cairo. Alot of this is attributed to the huge number (60%)of cars on the road that are over 10 years old and therefore lack the emmission guards and controls on newer vehicles. The pollution doesn't disperse very well because the city has very narrow streets, bordered by tall buildings and there is very little rain in Cairo. In the four days we were there, the haze got progressively worse. This picture is from my hotel room on the third day and you can see the pollution.

Our tour included visiting a mosque,Mosque of Ibn Tulun. It is the oldest mosque in Cairo, built in 876 AD. It is built on a hill called Gebel Yashkur, or "Hill of Thanksgiving" and local legend has it that this is the hill Noah's ark landed on, not Mt. Ararat (as most of the world believes!) I thought I might have to wear a head scarf but I didn't. We had to take off our shoes or wear coverings over them. However one of the women in our group was wearing a v-neck tshirt, that I didn't think was that low cut but the men at the mosque made her wear a shawl covering herself up. I learned quite a bit about mosques and Islam during our visit. This is the inside courtyard of the mosque, which usually holds an area where a muslim can wash before entering the mosque. In this mosque, the cleansing area is in the dome building. You can see the courtyard is flanked by hallways that are lined with rugs for prayer. All mosques have a niche in one wall that indicates the direction of Mecca. If you are in a mosque that has more than one prayer alcove, each alcove will have a niche pointing toward Mecca. Muslims pray 5 times a day. The muezzin is the person at the mosque who leads the call for prayer. He will climb to the top of the minaret, or tower, at the mosque and call out for the Muslims to pray. In the old days he would just call out, now he uses a microphone so people can hear him. You can hear the call for prayer pretty much all over the city from the various mosques. There are mosques all over the place in Cairo so you can pretty much hear it from where ever you may happen to be, like in your hotel room. This marking on the ceiling in my hotel room is typical in the Middle East, so any Muslim in that room knows which direction Mecca is and thus in which direction to pray.

Egypt is a complicated country. The people I met were extremely friendly. Of course most of the people I came into contact with were in the service industry, the hotel, the restaurants, tour operators but truthfully, I can't remember a time when I received better service a hotel or a restaurant operator was so concerned that I enjoy my food, offering to replace it with something else if I didn't like before I had even taken a bite. The local people were extremely interested in Americans and pretty aware of US politics, "America Good - George Bush Bad", something my taxi driver said to me. In fact quite a few local people knew all about George Bush, Obama, Hillary. They are up to date on the election process going on in the States right now, telling me which States Hillary had lost or where Obama was having a tough time. They were pretty much consistent in their dislike of Bush. I was thinking about that and how much the common man in Egypt seemed to know of American politics and how much that surprised me. Before you discount that, think of this -- do you think many taxi drivers in the US can name the president of Egypt? I am sure that Bush has more impact on their daily lives than their president on ours but amazing just the same.

Going to a market or souk is an experience. The most famous one in Cairo is called Khan El Khalili. It is several streets of vendors selling different items. I am told that there are still some items of value there and it can be a good place but most of the stuff I saw was the touristy stuff. Not that buying that stuff isn't fun, I am just not sure many local folk actually buy goods here any more. Still it was fun, you walk through the streets and alleyways and the vendors call out to you to come into their stall, they have the best deals etc. One guy said to me "Lady, I don't know what you are looking for, but I am sure I have it!". Right. We stopped and had some mint tea at the famous, El-Fishawi Cafe. Open 24 hours a day, it claims it has never been closed in 300 years. In April 2005, it was the site of a suicide bombing that claimed 20+ lives inlcuding an American. In fact, that bombing is the reason Snake & Kiki's school does not take them to the market any more. Apparently the swim team was there that day in 2005 and had only left the market several hours before the event. Scary.

The sign of a good trip is when you are left with the feeling of wanting more. I definitely have changed my viewpoint of whether this area of the world is interesting. There is much more I would like to see and I think I would enjoy exploring other countries in this region. Of course with the political climate today, you need to be extremely careful where you go and when. I have learned a valuable lesson - there is merit and value in just about every place you can visit. If you keep your mind open you can learn something.



Now, I have other adventures stockpiled to tell you about but it is going to have to wait. Stay tuned to find out where we went on the first half of Spring Break, it will surprise you. Or maybe not.

A True Spain Experience?

Kiki & Snake had a week off for February break. Many of their friends went to ski but we decided to go to Madrid. We hadn't yet been to Spain, at least I hadn't - the kids went there earlier in the school year on a school trip. Since they are both taking Spanish in school I thought it would be a good opportunity to put that to use.

It is fairly easy to get to Spain, a little under 3 hours from London. Since we are seasoned travellers we decided to take the metro train from the airport to our hotel. Oh, who am I kidding - it is way cheaper to take the metro from the airport to the hotel. 2 euros per person as opposed to a cab. So the kids managed to figure out the automated ticket machine and we bought 3 tickets. Now the procedure was not without some complications. We needed to transfer twice. The first transfer was a piece of cake, we got to the next line with little complication although we did think Snake had lost his ticket and we were concerned about whether he would need to spend the next few days in an endless loop around Madrid. While we were waiting for the next train, the station started to fill up with various travellers, commuters and people just going about their business. When our train came, we worked our way to the door along with quite a few other people. One young woman just came right up on Snake and was pushing him trying to get in the door. It frustrated him because he didn't think there was a need but she just pushed him right in the train car. He was complaining about it to me when he realized his wallet was gone. We looked over at the girl, she made eye contact with us and then jumped off the train right before the doors shut. Snake was pickpocketed within 45 minutes of our leaving the plane in Spain. Hmmm. When we got to the hotel, we asked the clerk if we should put a report in at the train station and he had to stifle a smile. He said it was of no use. We were lucky, actually Snake only had a few shekels in his wallet - the wallet was worth more and he lost his London transit pass and his school ID card. Well, lesson learned. We decided not to let it ruin our trip but we also vowed that we all three would keep an eye on each other and be a little more vigilant.

The next day we set off for the Prado Museum. It wasn't that far from our hotel and the weather was surprisingly good so we walked. We had decided for simplicity sake I would carry a back pack. At one point, we were crossing the street and I had the pack slung over my shoulder. When we got to the other side, Kiki turned around and said to me "watch it Mom", at that point Kiki reached behind me to the backpack and caught a woman with her hands in the back portion of the backpack, the little section that has a place for your cell phone, and wallet etc. (although we only had a bottle of water in there). She had unzipped the pack while I had been walking across the street. The thief/woman was good, she had a map in her hand and she and her partner tried to make themselves look like the rest of us tourists walking down the street. She made some comment under her breath in Spanish to Kiki and then walked across the street, shooting us dagger looks the entire time. Like she was mad at us!! "Sorry, we should have put our wallets in there to make it easier for you to rob us blind!" So we stared them down for a few minutes and the thieves/women decided to move on. I think they thought I would have told a policeman if I found one. And they are right I would have. So Kiki saved the day!! Yay Kiki!! So two times in about 18 hours, we had one successful and one attempted pickpocket. After that I carried a large tote bag that zippered and kept the zipper to the front of me so I could see it at all times. And we stopped wearing the "WE ARE TOURISTS" t-shirts with the big red bullseye on them. We thought it best. The rest of the trip went without a hitch. Not to say money didn't disappear from my wallet but unfortunately it was I who spent it!

We enjoyed quite a bit of the Spanish art, it was interesting to compare the differences between what we saw in Madrid to what we see at the museums in London. The color alone is breathtaking. These Spanish paintings have some of the most vivid reds and blues that I have ever seen. El Greco, Goya, Picasso - we saw them all. I was surprised to find that in his early years, Picasso actually painted in a rather pedestrian manner. It wasn't until his later years that he became all wacky. (And yes, wacky is a specific art term). At another Museum we saw his painting, La Guernica which depicts the 1937 Nazi bombing of Guernica Spain, killing many people. (The Nazis provided support to Franco during the Civil War) The painting is just huge and all in black and white. In this particular exhibit they also had his sketches done before the painting. You can see where he tried out different parts over and over again and how these sketches were different from the finished work. It was fascinating to try and see how his mind worked, not that I could but I found it interesting as well. They also included photographs of what Madrid and other parts of Spain looked like during the Spanish Civil War. You can see what this war did to Spain and how dangerous it must have been to live there during these times.

We had dinner that night at a restaurant that bills itself as the oldest restaurant in Madrid. It is claimed that the artist Goya worked there either as a dishwasher or a busboy. It was also a favorite of Hemmingway's. We had a very nice meal and a little bit of Sangria. A group of musicians came by later and serenaded the tables in our section and we enjoyed that quite a bit. For our first full day and night in Spain, it was a great way to get in the mood and give us a flavor of things to come. And no one tried to steal anything from us that night!

We also made a side trip to Toledo, which is a medieval village about 1/2 hour train ride out of Madrid. I much prefer trains rides to planes because you can really get a good look at the countryside. Toledo wins the most beautiful train station award (if there isn't one, there should be and this station should get it.) Of course we had loads of time time to observe the train station as some of the trains were sold out when we came back and we had to wait for about 2 hours for a train. One thing about Toledo is that the architecture is amazing. I could walk all over for hours and look at all of the buildings. And we did. There is a beautiful cathedral in town, which housed some amazing Greco paintings. Apparently Cervantes, of Don Quixote fame, spent quite a bit of time in this area. There is a pretty good size statute of him there. Toledo is definitely a walking town and I think we managed to walk just about all of it looking for a good place for lunch. On the way to lunch we also manage to stalk this monk. It seemed like a fun thing to do, I guess you had to be there.



I love to visit churches and palaces and so in Madrid I managed to find a few of both. The Palacio Real is technically the official residence of King Juan Carlos and family but in reality they don't live there, choosing to live in a smaller palace on the outside of Madrid. What a problem to have, which palace to live in. We headed over there one morning but couldn't go in right away because they were just finishing up with some kind of ceremony. We couldn't really figure out what was going on, although later we found that the crown prince had been there at some kind of event. There were all kinds of press there and people marching around in all kinds of uniforms. I took a picture of this guy, who was obviously some kind of dignitary because of the way the people around him reacted. I thought his get up reminded me of the soliders that hung out in Rick's Americain Cafe in Casablanca. What do you think? I really enjoyed going in this palace. I think it has to be one of the most striking that we have visited. The rooms are all very beautiful with lots of art and gilding all over the place. The throne room looks exactly like you would imagine a throne room to look, big huge chairs (i.e. thrones) on hugh platforms, gold fixtures, red velvet everywhere, red rugs all very plush.


As usual one of the fun parts of traveling to new places is trying the local cuisine. In addition to the sangria I mentioned previously, one of the must dos in Madrid is a chocolateria, which is a little place that sells hot chocolate and churros or other pastries. We went in one afternoon and tried it out. The churros were good and the hot chocolate is good but a little different. It was not as sweet as the hot chocolate we are used to and it was fairly thick. Snake pointed out it was as if someone took a baking chocolate bar and melted it. You can drink it but most people we saw, ate it with a spoon like soup.

One of the things I really wanted to do was to see some flamenco dancing. Coincidentally, hat was also right up there on the list of things that the kids wanted to do as well. Not! But I persisted because it is one of those cultural experiences that you should have when you visit a new place and you will always remember. We went to a small little restaurant in Madrid that has dancing just about every night. It was very interesting. There is a real connection between the dancers and the musicians. I was surprised how much they interacted and seemed to feed off each other's energy. To be truthful, I thought the music for each dance was very similiar but the dancing was a bit different each time. It is powerful and I am glad we did it. I think Kiki and Snake are glad too, way, way, way down, deep, deep inside. Ask them.


I thought these street signs were interesting. On all the streets named for individuals they had these little plaques that had an illustration of the person and their year of birth and death. I didn't see any streets named after any live people so I am not sure if you have to be dead to have a street named after you. It would make sense because if you were alive when the street was named, it would seem rather cumbersome for someone to have to get up on a ladder and paint in the year of your death after you passed. Just a thought.


This is Plaza Mayor in Madrid, one of the main plazas. Quite a few towns in Spain have a Plaza Mayor (which means Major Plaza). It is a central meeting place, artists working, perhaps a street performer or two, lined with cafes and people "people-watching". In the old days, the plaza was apparently used for bullfights and they claim you can still see some of the blood on the walls but I didn't see any. During the Inquistion they held impromptu executions of heretics in the Square. Interestingly enough, they don't claim you will find any remnants of those killings in the square.

One thing that you never get used to in Europe is how many people still smoke and how much it is allowed in public places. In fact I read a statistic the other day that indicates smoking is on the rise again in young people. It is surprising in this day and age. But Europe is slowly but surely catching on. In the UK and other countries they have enacted strong no smoking statutes,restricting smoking in some bars and restaurants or at the least providing non-smoking sections. But they still have a long way to go. We routinely ask for non-smoking hotel rooms which would normally mean you are on a non-smoking floor. However, in a few hotels this just means your particular room is non-smoking but you might be right next to a smoking room or you can smoke in the hallways. Our hotel room in Madrid was a non-smoking room on a non-smoking floor but recognizing that people don't always follow the rules, the hotel made sure we knew it was non smoking by putting in no fewer than 4 little reminders. How did the remind us? By putting in these:


Non- Smoking Ashtrays, of course!


We had a wonderful time in Madrid and felt like we got a real feel of the city. Our initial brush with the seamy, sleezy underbelly of Spain ended up not getting in the way of enjoying all the things it has to offer. ¡Madrid era grande!

My Baby is 15!!

Snake turns 15 today and I can hardly believe it. 15, how did that happen? Well, I know how it happened, it comes right after 14 but I can't believe how fast it has gone. Considering he had a bit of rough time coming into the world, it has all worked out. Shortly before my due date, my OB politely pointed out that this baby was looking considerably bigger than my last baby. Since we needed to go in and take Kiki by C-section because I wasn't able to do it the other way, she thought that I might have some difficulty with Snake. (Which angered me, because as it turns out my hips weren't child bearing after all and that was the only thing that comforted me over the years!!) Anyway she scheduled a C-Section for a week before Snake's due date.

So we go in and have the operation. At first, I thought he was a girl because Chizz (who had a better view) said the baby looked just like Kiki. Well apparently not just like Kiki, as it turns out there were a few differences. But he wasn't quite cooked yet and had some breathing issues, he had to take too many breaths to get oxygen in his lungs and as a result sounded like he was panting as he struggled to get breath. We were concerned but the doctors were so good at reassuring us he was going to be fine, I don't think we realized at first how sick he really was. They took him away and he had to go to the Neo-natal ICU.

As it turns out, Snake probably would have stayed in for a while. We all know women who have gone overdue, days and sometimes weeks. I would have probably had a 42 week pregnancy and Snake would have been gaining weight all that time. The doctors using their doctor magic figured out he was approximately 3 week premature. He was 8 pounds exactly, an 8 pound premie. They guestimate he would have been around 10 pounds had he stuck around. Yikes!!! 10 pounds. When we went into ICU to see him, he barely fit in the isolette - the incubator. Like a big Baby Huey with tubes and wires all over him. He was in ICU right next to babies born at 30 weeks, really tiny. There was a little girl so tiny and so fragile, you could practically see through her skin. Then there was my baby, arms and legs practically draping over the edges of his little basket. I had to defensively point out several times, "He's sick too!!". Originally they told us to prepare that Snake would be in the hospital for several weeks but he was allowed to leave a little over a week later. He had other plans, things to do, a sister to terrorize.

Since that time, it has been a blast having him around. He marches to the beat of not only a different drummer but sometimes a whole different instrument. He is handsome, funny, thoughtful. He has "liberal hair" but is a conservative at heart (how, how, how did that happen?). He gets great joy from terrorizing and teasing his sister but not so secretly really kind of likes her. He likes strange sports teams, heavy metal music (again how?) history and politics. Snake was the first one on board for our move to London - he couldn't wait for the adventure to start. He can be annoyingly stubborn, messy and sometimes talks when he shouldn't. He hugs me every day (oh, wouldn't the guys love to know that).

Happy Birthday Snake, we can't wait to see what the next 15 years are like. The first fifteen have been pretty cool. We love you.